Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a preserving kettle, combine the sugar and dry acids.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture and add the lemon juice and rind.
Stir until fully dissolved and let it cool completely.
Finish and bottle
Once cooled, fold in the well-beaten egg whites and the juice of 2 more lemons.
Strain the mixture through muslin and bottle it.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White sugar
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the syrup.
- Citric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds a sharper, tart acidity to the syrup.
- Egg whites
- Help clarify the syrup as they are strained out through muslin.
- Lemon juice
- Supplies fresh lemon flavour and additional acidity.
The step that matters
Strain the mixture through muslin. Egg whites are folded in to clarify the syrup, and straining through muslin removes the coagulated solids. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the bottled syrup cloudy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Datesfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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